QuickBooks Review — Pros & Cons [2023]

Top Features

Here are the most exciting features of QuickBooks. See if they meet your business needs.

Accounting Features

The need for a dedicated accountant goes away with QuickBooks. It tracks all your income and expenses regardless of your business type.

• Job Costing – Tracking the financial outcomes of projects is crucial to determine which project you should continue and which you should not. QuickBooks takes the minor input and figures out which project costs what. So, you get a clear idea of projects that are making or spending money.
• Manage Bills – Paying bills separately can become a big hassle, especially if you run a large business. QuickBooks Online handles all the billing in one place. With all bills organized, you can quickly know about the bills to pay.
• Track Expenses – You can add multiple bank accounts, credit cards, or other platforms to your QuickBooks account, and the tool will efficiently track all the expenses from those accounts. It will even match receipts with every transaction and keep them organized.
• Inventory Tracking – Knowing what is in stock and what is not is crucial to run businesses better. With QuickBooks, you can track your inventory in real-time. It will even send you alerts when the stock is too low.
• Manage 1099 for Contractors – While paying a contractor, you must maintain 1099 forms to be compliant. QuickBooks does this for you by automatically tracking all contractor payments and preparing 1099 forms.

Invoicing Features

This is probably the fussiest part of any business. Creating invoices and collecting payments manually takes a lot of time. QuickBooks can save you time and hassle with a bunch of valuable features.

• Customized Invoices – You can choose from multiple invoice templates so that you don’t need to create the invoice from scratch. On top of that, you can customize the invoices to match your brand. There should be more flexibility in customizing invoices, though.
• Real-Time Alerts – After you send the invoice, you don’t need to check over and over again if the invoice has been paid. You will get notifications when invoices are paid. The tool will even send automatic reminders so that you get the payment in time. And every payment will be directly tracked to keep things in order.
• Pay Online – Instantly payable invoices are probably the most significant benefit here. To create a dynamic payment system, you can add custom buttons to invoices. By clicking those buttons, your customers will be able to pay online using various platforms. It lets you collect payment much faster.
• Recurring Invoices – This feature is helpful when you need to send invoices to the same customer over and over again. Instead of sending them manually, you can set up the schedule, and the tool will automatically send invoices.
• Progress Invoices – Taking milestone payments can be convenient when you are charging someone for a long project. Send progress invoices depending on the amount of work done and get paid for the part.
• Split Payments – Splitting payments into portions allows you to get paid after crossing a specific milestone. You can create those stages for convenient splitting, and QuickBooks will automatically track the paid and due amounts. Instead of manually adjusting invoices, you can simply split them for QuickBooks to handle the rest.

Time Tracking Capabilities

Tracking the time employees spend working for you is crucial to calculate their payments. You can do that with QuickBooks, which is extremely helpful for managing teams.

• Manage Multiple Employees – Knowing when your employees are working is now very easy with QuickBooks. You can check the status of the projects they are working on and set reminders.
• Employee Scheduling – Depending on jobs or shifts, you might need to create various schedules for employees. Creating a schedule from scratch or editing an existing schedule is possible on the platform. But you might need to go through the learning curve in this case.
• Mobile App – You don’t need to be in front of a computer to track time or create schedules. QuickBooks app is available for Android and iOS. So, you can simply download the app and perform various tasks on the go. But the app didn’t seem to be utterly bug-free during our tests.
• Reporting – Don’t rely on assumptions while running a business anymore. With the advanced reporting feature, you will get detailed insights into various aspects of your projects in real time.

Payroll Services

Managing payroll can be a hell of a job for any business! With QuickBooks, you can manage payroll easier, with a number of useful features.

• Automatic Payroll – Setting up the rules for your payroll system helps you save a lot of time. Once you set the payroll, it automatically tracks time, calculates payments, and handles deposits so that you can focus on other aspects of the business.
• Automatic Taxes and Forms – Calculating payments and sending them correctly isn’t the last thing you need to worry about. Tax compliance is a huge load to move, and it often becomes complicated. QuickBooks handles payroll taxes correctly and efficiently.
• Same-Day Direct Deposit – With this feature, you can process payroll at your convenience, and employees will get their payment on the same day.
• Tax Penalty Protection – QuickBooks is so confident about its accuracy that it will pay up to $25,000 in tax penalties if any mistake is found in payroll taxes and you face a penalty.
• Benefit Tools – QuickBooks also allows you to offer employees a number of benefits – including health insurance across the United States.
• Worker’s Compensation – If an employee gets injured on the job, handling medical coverage and wage replacement can be managed using this tool.
• 401(k) Plans – Saving for retirement can be tricky. But QuickBooks lets you set contribution levels for the business and employees quickly.

Pros & Cons of QuickBooks

Now that you know about the top features, here are the pros and cons to be aware of.

QuickBooks Plans & Pricing

• Simple Start – starting at $15/mo – includes everything needed to get started, including the ability to send invoices and receive payments, general reporting, and receipt capture tools.
• Essentials – starting at $27.50/mo – includes all of the Simple Start features, for up to 3 different users. Connect to Amazon, Shopify, and/or eBay. Manage and pay your bills directly from QuickBooks.
• Plus – starting at $42.50/mo – includes all of the Essentials features but for up to 5 different users, plus the ability to track inventory and project profitability.
• Advanced – starting at $100/mo – includes all of the Plus features, but for up to 25 different users, plus timesaving capabilities for high-volume businesses, including business analytics via Excel, batch invoices and expenses, customized access by role, process and task automation, along with a dedicated account team.

Our Take on QuickBooks

QuickBooks is arguably the most popular software for cloud accounting. Tracking your income and expenses becomes hassle-free with this tool. It also helps you to manage bills, keep an eye on inventories, file tax forms, manage payroll, and many more. Sending custom invoices, recurring invoices, or progress invoices is also easy. And the ability to pay online helps you collect payments faster. Time tracking is another convenient feature for managing payrolls. Though the mobile app of QuickBooks isn’t very stable, you at least get an app for multiple operating systems to manage your account on the go. We also like that QuickBooks offers a lot of templates for invoices, but it is a bummer that you can’t customize them much further. QuickBooks pricing plans are confusing, though – as the intro cost changes based on how many months you pay for. In the Simple Start plan, you need to spend $15 per month if you choose to pay for three months together.

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